Registration for MysteryQuest USA is open now. I’m still adding dates, and probably won’t advertise to the listservs until that is done. But past participants are registering already and I thought you, my blog readers, might have interested classes as well.
Sign up soon!
As part of the Evaluation and Assessment competency, I’ve started reading How to Be Involved in Program Evaluation: What Every Administrator Needs to Know.
As I’m just starting to get a feel for how best to meet this competency, I’m reading this book fairly slowly.
In the first chapter, McNeil et al. compare the differences between the program director and the evaluator (p. 17). Some of the ones that caught my attention are:
Program Director / Evaluator
Person of immediate action / Person of deliberation
Pragmatic / Realistic
Concerned with current program / interested in replicable results (p. 17).
So far in my 10 years or so of working at the ISD, I’ve only really tried to run my program and evaluate it myself. Only occasionally, usually at the end of a grant, have my supervisors brought in an outside evaluator. Some of the evaluations I do are:
What I’m realizing is, when I run my own evaluations, I may be inadvertently missing important information, not hearing from all the participants, and possibly looking only for data that supports my program. There may be a bias.
In some cases, the program director is highly involved in evaluation and guiding it, which these authors see as a good thing (p. 32). However, involved directors need to remember that “others involved with the program must become active stakeholders in the evaluation process.” Hmm. I’m not sure yet what that means for my own practice, but I realize I need to hear from others. Who are the others? How do I hear from them? How do I involve them without burdening them?
I’m definitely seeing that using a known model to guide a person’s work makes it much less likely that an important piece will be overlooked.
Last week I attended some sessions by Gary Stager at the MACUL Conference. I blogged them both: 10 Things to Do with Laptops and Digital Democracy. While listening to the closing keynote, I also skimmed some of the articles on Stager’s website: particularly his critiques of Daniel Pink and Thomas Friedman‘s popular books.
These ideas simmered in my brain over the weekend. This was my first experience hearing Stager speak, and his thoughts are challenging and require processing. I’m still processing the new ideas.
But one piece of logic really struck me. The Andrews Leadership program focuses on laying a theoretical framework for each competency and for our research. The professors keep pushing us to deeper levels of understanding and the ability to compare, synthesis and select theoretical frameworks for our work. I’m still learning what that really means. But Stager helped me realize why it matters.
Theoretical frameworks ground us in the knowledge by those who have gone before. It lays the foundation. Gives us shoulders to stand on. Builds on the body of knowledge already there.
As I’ve worked on the beginnings of my literature review, I’ve realized the importance of really understanding what others have done.
Stager’s critique of those popular books showed me that often best-selling books are someone sharing their ideas, with little connection to previous works and theory. Therefore they should be viewed carefully and thoughtfully, without swallowing the whole idea hook, line, and sinker.
I understand better now, why it’s important that the books that we reference for our reflection papers for each competency need to be books of substance, grounded in research.
I’ve written already about what I learned from the book, Writing Your Dissertation with Word.
Based on that reading, when I started writing my dissertation proposal, I started with the template on the AU Leadership participant website.
Soon, though, I found that the headings were not in the format required by Andrews – 3 spaces before, 2 spaces after. So I figured out how to edit the styles.
In Word 2003 to the left of the style pull down menu is a double AA icon. That brings up a window with all the styles on the right. From there you can click on the pull down menu, and choose Modify. Then Format, Paragraph… I made the “before spacing” 12 pt. When I saved, it updated all 18 of my headings. Voila!! 🙂
Yet another reason to learn to use styles and templates!
I’ve “muttered” here before about H.239 and the various problems with it (H.239 and MCUs and this post). Today I had a compelling reason to make it work and room in my brain to figure it out! Honestly, that’s half my problem with this technology. Just no time to figure it out! 🙂
Today I figured it out. I found the setting on our Polycom VSX 7000s to make sure H.239 is turned on. It’s under System, Admin, Network, Call Preference, and you want it checked.
I also found the setting on my conference template on the TANDBERG MPS MCU. It’s called “dual stream” and has to be turned on.
Once I figured that out, I was able to receive H.239 from a Polycom VSX 7000 with People Plus Content through my TANDBERG MCU to a Polycom VSX 7000 on my desk. Yeah!!
I think testing H.239 scenarios is on my list to figure out too. It would be really nice to know more certainly which units can receive it and which can’t; and how to fix (update settings) ones that can’t that really should be able to! Now for just a little more time…..
At the MACUL 08 Conference this year, I ran into some of our local tech coordinators and we chatted about the progress of videoconferencing in their districts.
We commiserated about the great fact that the school level videoconference coordinators are doing fine on their own, and the sad fact that we don’t get to see the videoconferences as much anymore. We miss “running the show” for our teachers, but the increased usage is a testament to the fact that the new model of a school level champion, with district and educational service agency level support for that person, is a successful model. The support tree structure makes it easy for teachers to participate, and hence we have greater use of videoconferencing.
Note: This post was written for the MACUL conference blog 2008 with attendees in mind. However I’m reposting it here because it seems it would be useful for readers here too.
In Sue Porter’s session, we connected to four new content providers.
The Oilers Ice School We talked to the main character in the book A Loonie for Luck. Students learn about simple machines in making a vehicle related to zamboni machines. Students learn about the world of work and different careers too. They are just getting started.
Next we connected to author Janie Panagopoulos. She can come directly to your school and talk to your students about writing. She connects from her home office. She can tailor the programs to your learning needs – podcasts, writing feedback, asking and answering questions, walking students through the writing process, etc. Janie is really enthusiastic and interactive with the students and “jumps out the screen” to interact and motivate your students.
Then we headed over to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The presenter dug out some Lions paraphernalia for our viewing pleasure. They are new to videoconferencing and taking their existing educational activities and adapting them to videoconferencing. All of their programs include pre and post visit activities. One interesting program is the Careers in the NFL to learn about other careers in the NFL besides just professional athletics. They have 5 new programs in preparation for next school year: Brian’s Song, African American Pioneers, Team Nicknames, and NFL Media / economics. By the way, they have a grant that subsidizes actual transportation. They are really cheap programs – $50 a program!! That’s a seriously good deal.
Finally we headed over to the Calvert Marine Museum. They are starting their programs in the fall of 2008. They have wonderful pictures and graphics to show in their presentations. Their educational content includes sharks, estuary, maritime heritage, climate change, etc. For being a newbie content provider, they have a great handle on the use of the camera, visuals, backgrounds, and bringing in other resources. I look forward to connecting to this provider when they get up and running.
My favorite thing about the TWICE sessions, is when the teachers say, “how do I do this?” and after asking them where they are, we can tell them how they already have access to videoconferencing. And then they say, “You’re kidding. Really?!” It’s so unfortunate tho’ that they don’t realize the power of the technology they already have!
After listening to Gary Stager at the MACUL 08 Conference, I went up to ask him about the handouts from his session yesterday that I missed. In the course of the conversation, he said to me,
“Why do people identify themselves with just one technology?”
He was referring to some of the ideas in the Web 2.0 session he did yesterday that I had missed. He didn’t mean to, but he challenged my own practice.
It made me think! (Which I think is the point of listening to Gary Stager.)
I like to refer to myself as a “one technology girl”, referring to videoconferencing. I try to keep my blog focused on videoconferencing. Every time I go somewhere or see something or learn something, I’m trying to see how it ties to videoconferencing.
I want to say, how can we make our videoconferences more constructive? But I feel like I’m coming at it from the wrong angle, by starting with the technology. On the other hand, it seems that videoconferencing is a perfect fit for social constructivist learning because it’s a communication technology. I need to keep thinking about this….
One of Gary’s points was “less us, more them.”
Some beginning thoughts are:
Gary also emphasized the importance of good prompts. We need more good prompts for teachers and students using videoconferencing. What tough questions could help them head down to a path of interaction with experts and/or peers?
These are just a few beginning random thoughts stirred up after listening to Gary today. Off to the next session, but these ideas will keep simmering….
Note: This post was written for the MACUL conference blog 2008 with attendees in mind. However I’m reposting it here because it seems it would be useful for readers here too.
In this session by Max Graves and Anne Thorpe, we learned about the different videoconference providers in Michigan.
We connected to Northern Michigan University to talk to Diane who does the Meet the Musher program. Her sessions include a video clip of life at her kennel, and interactive questions with her, and with a live dog with her. Usually 3-5th grade classes participate in these programs. The audience asked questions about how videoconferencing works, how to prepare the class, whether permission slips are necessary, and about the dogs as well. The presenters told a funny story of bringing dogs into a videoconference room and a male dog decided to mark the room as his territory.
We also connected to the Cranbrook Science Institute to talk to Cameron Wood who organizes their videoconference programs. Cranbrook has the green screen technology and showed how it worked. They have the People On Content from Polycom. Cameron gave an overview of the programs they offer, and then walked us through the The People of Three Fires program, including illustrations, language, and history. Miigwetch Cameron!
Here’s a picture of the TWICE room, but my little MacBook Pro built in camera doesn’t really do it justice!
Other content providers mentioned in this session were:
If you haven’t seen videoconferencing, make sure you swing by Gallery Overlook H in one of the sessions coming up so you can see the possibilities!
Note: This post was written for the MACUL conference blog 2008 with attendees in mind. However I’m reposting it here because it seems it would be useful for readers here too.
Session: Collaborations Around the Planet: Social Networking for Educational Videoconferencing
In my session today, we started with two connections to New York State. Unfortunately, since I was presenting, I couldn’t grab any pictures. But those kids were so cute! The first class presented the animal riddles. Each first grader had a 3-4 sentence riddle about an animal. The teachers guessed the animals. The teachers loved it and it was a great model of how to get the audience involved in your presentation.
In the second connection, the students presented a skit based on the book Andrew’s Loose Tooth. Most of the students took turns narrating, and other students acted out the story. After both presentations, the teachers and students asked each other questions. “How many snow days have you had?” “What do you like about videoconferencing?” “Where are you?” etc.
These connections were illustrations of the project Read Around the Planet. We were also able to compare a 384K videoconference (standard definition) with an HD (high definition) 2M connection from Polycom HDX to HDX. We saw an obvious difference in the clarity. We still got some packet loss and pixelation, but we’re pretty sure the conference didn’t give us QoS on our connection so it was probably on this end.
Afterwards, we talked about how to get videoconferencing going, participating in Michigan Week Connections, how to use the Collaborations Around the Planet website, and shared stories of other videoconferences we’ve done.
